Nova Scotia Forest Fires

Swerd

Swerd

Audioholic Warlord
I was recently outside for a short time, and the sky looked bluer than it was this morning. Was that because of improved air quality? The science geek in me wants to know.

After stumbling around a weather web site, Weather Underground, I saw that my local Air Quality Index (AQI) is about 160, in the Red (Unhealthy) range.
1686251951752.png

I don't know what the AQI was this morning when the sky looked more hazy.

I also found this note:
1686251845051.png
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
I was recently outside for a short time, and the sky looked bluer than it was this morning. Was that because of improved air quality? The science geek in me wants to know.

After stumbling around a weather web site, Weather Underground, I saw that my local Air Quality Index (AQI) is about 160, in the Red (Unhealthy) range.
View attachment 62261
I don't know what the AQI was this morning when the sky looked more hazy.

I also found this note:
View attachment 62260

There's also airnow.gov, aqicn.org, purpleair.com (which also had local sensors in various homes/businesses)
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
Milwaukee's air quality is among the worst in the world, according to this article- I just looked at the weather app on my phone and it showed air quality is 178. It's sometimes difficult to breathe indoors, I can't understand why people are outside riding bicycles, running, etc. I can't remember many days that didn't include the smell of smoke since the fires started.

 
cpp

cpp

Audioholic Ninja
Milwaukee's air quality is among the worst in the world, according to this article- I just looked at the weather app on my phone and it showed air quality is 178. It's sometimes difficult to breathe indoors, I can't understand why people are outside riding bicycles, running, etc. I can't remember many days that didn't include the smell of smoke since the fires started.

Neat site. Where I live its a 29.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Milwaukee's air quality is among the worst in the world, according to this article- I just looked at the weather app on my phone and it showed air quality is 178. It's sometimes difficult to breathe indoors, I can't understand why people are outside riding bicycles, running, etc. I can't remember many days that didn't include the smell of smoke since the fires started.

126 here in the Twin Cities and rising. It looks bad. Yesterday was the only day in a long time where air quality was good. It is starting to affect me significantly. By yesterday evening it was rising fast. Up 100 in less than 24 hours.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
126 here in the Twin Cities and rising. It looks bad. Yesterday was the only day in a long time where air quality was good. It is starting to affect me significantly. By yesterday evening it was rising fast. Up 100 in less than 24 hours.
Up to 151 now! Back into the red zone.
 
Eppie

Eppie

Audioholic Ninja
Up to 151 now! Back into the red zone.
Do you have a fresh air system with HEPA filters or equivalent in the new home? Hopefully you have a safe space indoors for these conditions. Toronto is only rated 35 now. When we hiked the Collingwood area south of Georgian Bay we were lucky that the winds kept the smoke from the Ontario fires to the east and didn't affect that area much. Looks like the large fire in southern Alberta is still giving you trouble.

https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/fw?type=fwi
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Do you have a fresh air system with HEPA filters or equivalent in the new home? Hopefully you have a safe space indoors for these conditions. Toronto is only rated 35 now. When we hiked the Collingwood area south of Georgian Bay we were lucky that the winds kept the smoke from the Ontario fires to the east and didn't affect that area much. Looks like the large fire in southern Alberta is still giving you trouble.

https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/fw?type=fwi
We are now up to 163. HEPA filters cause too much resistance to catch the 2 micron carbon particles. We do have an electrostatic filter, and that catches a lot. There is no way to catch everything and have a functioning system. I had the electrostatic filter, which has very little air flow resistance installed in the Spring.
 
Mikado463

Mikado463

Audioholic Spartan
We are now up to 163. HEPA filters cause too much resistance to catch the 2 micron carbon particles. We do have an electrostatic filter, and that catches a lot. There is no way to catch everything and have a functioning system. I had the electrostatic filter, which has very little air flow resistance installed in the Spring.
163 ?? !! that's nothing, two plus weeks ago Harrisburg, Pa was 484. Worst air quality in the nation, my eyes burnt, throat felt like it was on fire
 
GO-NAD!

GO-NAD!

Audioholic Spartan
Since I started this thread, we've had so much rain, that the fire risk in Nova Scotia has dropped to practically nothing. And, the forecast for the next two weeks has us getting rain every single day. At least we aren't getting the smoke that everyone else seems to be getting.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
Up to 151 now! Back into the red zone.
It was 245 overnight and 222 now- the first photo is from around 5:30PM yesterday as I was driving toward the curve in front of the taller buildings, which are a bit more than 1/2 mile away.

That's not fog- it was that way everywhere I drove. In the second photo (6246), a taller building can be seen by zooming in- that was a mile away.
 

Attachments

Eppie

Eppie

Audioholic Ninja
Wow, was I wrong about yesterday. That web site must have had old data. Fires from Quebec were creating air quality issues through most of Ontario. It wasn't bad Monday, but yesterday it looked like highfigh's photos here in London. I'm a mile from the downtown and the towers looked like they were shrouded in fog. Local news was using a different air quality scale from 1 to 10. Today is a 6 (moderate to high risk) but yesterday was a 10+ (very high risk). AQI 282 yesterday but down to 50 this morning.
 
adk highlander

adk highlander

Sith Lord
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
We had rain last week and it helped a bit, but not for long. I woke early this morning and noticed a distinct odor of burning conifers but that didn't lasted very long.

I saved this map a few minutes ago-
 

Attachments

TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
We had rain last week and it helped a bit, but not for long. I woke early this morning and noticed a distinct odor of burning conifers but that didn't lasted very long.

I saved this map a few minutes ago-
We are at 164 at the moment, so back in the RED zone. We are not really in fire season yet. So I fear that the worst may be yet to come. Since this all started we have only had a few stretches of a few hours where the air quality has been rated as good. This is now the second week in a row we have gone into the red zone. Last week we got into the purple zone. I understand that in this area the smoke is mainly from Ontario fires at the moment, but also still western fires. Either way it looks and smells bad, and I'm sure is harmful to health.

For a couple due any day for a half day out with the undertaker, we can't be cavalier about this. I don't have to bee outdoors very long before the effects are adverse. I was two days ago for unavoidable reasons and paid a penalty. The winter was long and spring late. We have only had one day this year were we could sit out on a patio, either because of smoke or adverse weather.

However the medical costs of this and the heat dome, which is getting ever closer to us, is thought to have cost over 1 billion dollars in excess medical cost so far.

However, as a physician I fear that this will be dwarfed by the long term medical costs. These 2 and 2.5 micron particles, go straight from lungs to blood stream. These carbon particles are highly reactive and the whole cardiovascular system is exposed to them. So what I worry about is future excess costs mortality and morbidity to the young, including children. I fear we are stoking future troubles. I fear this may all dwarf the effects of Covid by many miles and leagues.

The problem is that solutions are all long term, requiring massive changes to the organization of society, and costly. No one has any idea how to pay for all this, and that includes remediation. The effects of failing to act and the time it takes to act are mounting fast. Obviously the question is, how do you fund all this without setting off ruinous inflation? I have no clue.

I do think though, that we can not rely on one energy source, namely electricity. If we do the world will be a bird's nest of wires and transformers.
So we do need diverse energy resources, including electricity, gas and liquid fuels. This was garner maximum benefit from existing infrastructure.
 
GO-NAD!

GO-NAD!

Audioholic Spartan
I do think though, that we can not rely on one energy source, namely electricity. If we do the world will be a bird's nest of wires and transformers.
So we do need diverse energy resources, including electricity, gas and liquid fuels. This was garner maximum benefit from existing infrastructure.
While no narrow period of hot dry weather can be blamed on climate change, there is no denying that increasingly worse fire seasons all over the world are a consequence. And, with the massive emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere over the course of the industrial age being the primary source, we don't have any choice but severely curtail our use of fossil fuels. In the long run, we need to eliminate them.

As a doctor, you know that prevention is better than cure. So, rather than wonder how we are going to pay for the environmental and medical costs incurred through climate change, we should be doing our best to prevent those problems beforehand.
 
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